DEGM 3, Chapter 33: Memberships (Patreon)

Gomi had grown in Mazo’s absence. Adding new citizens meant more people to share in a cookout, sure, but the town now distilled vodka and made a ton of money selling dungeon loot–on top of brewing great beer.

For the cookout, that meant lots more to drink, a wider variety of snacks and treats delivered by the same caravan Mazo rode in with, and plenty of paint for the children to occupy themselves with painting over their faded palisade art from last season.

Not that Gomi’s children were that interested in painting. All of their attention was on the Blue Mage who reveled in the spotlight.

She summoned earthen pillars as tall as the bronzewoods, pulling rock and dirt straight up into the sky. She showcased all manner of flames that danced, exploded, changed colors, or formed elementals. She did the same with water and then again with ice. 

Then she demonstrated a spell that eliminated colors from the vision of everyone within the area of effect. One keyword at a time, she turned off their perception of blues, reds, and yellows. With the same keywords spoken rapidly, she dazzled their vision with a flashing array of colors. Hans quickly felt dizzy. He had never seen that ability before.

Mazo explained it was a hunting ability used by water tigers. Despite the name, these tigers weren’t made of water or were any more aquatic than normal tigers, but for years, no one knew that. They did know that water tigers came out of rivers and ponds and lakes to surprise their prey, but it turned out the preference for water was a camouflaging decision as it amplified the effectiveness of their unique ability to manipulate how their prey sees the world. The constant shifting of colors was particularly disorienting when a reflective surface was in sight.

For her finale, Mazo summoned a fog formed from thousands of overlapping ethereal hands. Instead of the simple sensation of a light mist, Hans felt limp fingers and hands grazing his face.

No one else enjoyed it either. She had to revisit a few of her fire spells to stop the kids from crying.

As the night wore on and children went home, the energy of the party slowed considerably. Several hours of drinking helped in subduing the gathering to quiet talks around a bonfire.

The sun down, a squat shadow approached where Hans, Mazo, Olza, Devon, and Galinda sat. 

“Miss Mazo! It’s damn good to see you.” Becky wrapped an arm around Mazo and gave her a one-armed hug. A huge stein frothing over with beer was in her other hand.

“You missed most of the party,” Mazo said, enduring the hug.

“Blame boss man,” Becky answered. “He had me scheduled for a run.”

“A run? Like in a dungeon?”

Becky froze. She stammered. “No, no, no. Dungeon? You’re so funny.”

Hans couldn’t let the Druid flail for long. “It’s okay. She knows.”

With relief in her voice, Becky said, “Thank gods. Thought I blew it there. Your eyes are going to pop outta your skull when you lay eyes on the core.”

“Dungeon core?”

Becky saw Hans waving behind Mazo, begging her to stop revealing specifics. She frowned. “You just said she knew! Fine, I just won’t talk.” The dwarf upended her stein and emptied it in four powerful glugs.

“You’re right,” Hans said. “I didn’t give you fair warning that she wanted it to be a surprise.”

“Damn well didn’t.”

Galinda offered to refill drinks for Becky and Mazo. 

“Thank you,” Mazo said, passing her cup over. “What do I owe you for all of this kindness?”

The lady tusk chuckled. “A good story.”

Mazo looked at Devon and grinned.

With a mouth full of pork, Devon’s smile fell as he shook his head. “No.”

“Hurry, Galinda! I’ve got a good Devon story for you.”

***

“It all started with a suicide cult,” Mazo began, “but we didn’t know that from the beginning. We were investigating missing persons that seemed bandit related. Orcs and Goblins weren’t quiet or subtle for their raids. Same with gnolls and trolls. People though, they try to cover their tracks, which is what was happening here.”

Adventurers didn’t see jobs involving people as potential combatants very often. Escorting a caravan could end up meaning a fight with brigands, but it usually didn’t. Good merchants didn’t skimp on security, and the presence of hired swords was typically enough to prevent any attempts at violence. Otherwise, criminal activity was usually handled by local or regional guard forces.

If the Guild got a job for a bandit problem, that meant that the guard lacked the manpower to address it or that the guard had reason to believe the activity could be monster-related. The former was the primary issue in this case, but there was a little bit of the latter. What looked like bandits at first glance could end up being something else.

“The party was me, Gret, Hans, Boden, and Devon. Hans was dating this Druid named Bala at the time, and she came along for the job too. That’s not really important to the story, but I like to remind Hans about her whenever I can. Job sounded like it would need a tracker, so she was a good get. She had this cat and–”

“That’s not relevant,” Hans interrupted.

“Fine. What is important is that Devon ended up joining a cult.”

Devon cut in. “You have to tell them why.”

“Allegedly, it was to gather intel, but we think he actually converted.”

Light laughter fluttered around the bonfire. When it calmed, Mazo explained that the party dropped the theory that bandits were to blame almost immediately. In the first house they investigated–an entire family gone overnight–they saw no evidence to suggest bandits were involved. Valuables sat in plain view. No doors or windows were forced open. The usual signs of a struggle, like overturned chairs and blood, were absent.

The people were gone, sure, but it looked as if they left willingly.

Even more unusual, the tracks Bala found went back to town before they disappeared under the footfalls of active residents. Most rural disappearances had trails that led into the wilderness. Dense forests and dark swamps were great cover for bandits and monsters alike. They avoided highly populated areas. They didn’t drag their prey directly into them.

“We saw four different homes like that,” Mazo said. “We were pretty damn near stumped, so we head to a tavern and start trying to brainstorm. While we’re there, this local girl keeps making eyes at Devon. And that wasn’t unusual. He got that attention everywhere. It would have been unusual for him not to get it there, so none of us thought much of it when Devon not-so-discretely excused himself from the table to talk to her.”

Hans smiled as Devon buried his face in his hands.

“We don’t see him for the rest of the night, and then at some terrible hour in the morning, he’s pounding on my door. There’s Devon, half-dressed. His lady friend had stepped out to use the bathroom, and curious little Devon started poking around and found a book on Necromancy in her nightstand. Casual light reading for a blossoming cultist, I guess.”

Devon didn’t know what the book said specifically because it was in a strange language, but he recognized a few of the runes and alchemical diagrams. He did know, however, that he didn’t want to be vulnerable around a woman with hobbies like those. Soon, the rest of the party was awake, and Mazo and Bala spent the better part of three hours checking Devon for Hexes, Curses, Charms, Poisons, and Psychic influences.

“He was certain she did something to him because, and I quote, ‘she was too good.’”

“I didn’t say that,” Devon protested.

“He did,” Hans clarified.

“Thank you, Hans,” Mazo said. “As I was saying, she was too good, according to Devon, but this is the closest thing we had to a lead, so we sent Devon back to her with a few fresh baked goods and had him dig deeper. Gret shadowed them to make sure Devon didn’t get eaten or sacrificed. Skip ahead two days, she invites him to join the cult.”

“What happened in those two days?” Galinda asked.

“The typical young love routine. Long walks, slow meals, late nights, an absurd amount of giggling–yes, Devon giggled. A lot.”

Despite continued efforts to find clues as to where the missing people may have gone, the party failed to uncover anything meaningful. Devon’s new girlfriend was still their best and only lead.

“The night of the invitation, while Devon is asleep in her bed, his little beau grabs her book, stands over him, and starts chanting. We might have lost our hero right then, but Gret threw a rock through the window. Devon wakes up, sees what’s happening, and tries to escape. She grabs him, and Devon decks cult girl in the mouth. He’ll tell you that’s not accurate, but Gret saw it all go down. She is maybe half of Devon’s size, and he just blasts her in the face and runs.”

While Gret stayed behind to see what she did next, Devon ran to the inn to rouse the rest of the party. 

“Eventually, cult girl wakes up and bolts into the woods with her book and a bag. Gret tails her to these temple ruins and then comes back for the rest of us. Gret wasn’t a Mage, and even he could feel the dark magic around that place.”

The party arrived at the temple an hour after dawn to find the entrance sealed. A carved stone the size of a doorway had been melted and warded to permanently close off that access point. The magic was advanced enough that no one in their party could damage the barrier, whether with magic or with weapons or with tools.

“Boden went back to town when it was looking like Bala and I weren’t going to have any luck. He returned with pickaxes, two sledgehammers, and a handful of metal wedges. While the rest of us are trying to puzzle out if there’s a keyword or a secret switch somewhere, Boden grabs Devon and starts hammering away at the wall.

“His reasoning was that people secured doors and windows but didn’t put much thought into strengthening everything in between. He was right, turns out, and so we made our own entrance.”

“We?” Devon interjected.

“Okay, Devon and Boden.”

The Paladin coughed.

“Okay. Okay. A little Boden, but mostly Devon while Boden drank whisky and critiqued his form.”

“What about Hans and Gret?” Becky asked. “They didn’t help?”

Devon laughed. “They were ‘conserving their energy.’”

When the latest round of bonfire arguing quieted, Mazo resumed the story.

Whatever force or god the original temple was built to honor, the cult had made it their own. Painted in murals or stitched into tapestries were dozens of affirmations and inspirational words meant to bolster the faith of the cult’s followers.

Mazo did her best to recall as many of them as she could:

-Forfeit physical treasures to honor the Lord of the Dark.

-Only in darkness can we truly see.

-Be the change in your world.

-Food for our mouths, darkness for our hearts.

-Talk to Deborah about potluck Fridays.

-Darkness walks with you. You see only one set of tracks because darkness carries you.

“We had maybe ventured two dozen yards into the temple before Bala called it: Undead. We don’t know if it was intentional or if a ritual went awry, but the entire cult had died and come back as zombies. But wait. When you picture zombies, you picture rotting flesh and tattered clothes, right? Fresh zombies are so much creepier. Their skin, their expressions… They’re just a few degrees away from what they were in life, and their brains are intact enough that they repeat things they said when they were alive. Remember that part.”

The cult had fifty seven members inside the temple, a count the party confirmed when the fighting concluded.

Though that wasn’t exactly an army of zombies, even a single stray zombie could trigger a sizable outbreak, so the party had to be diligent and thorough to eliminate them all.

The last zombie to fall was chained to a bloody altar, appearing to have been a sacrifice. Since she was restrained, she posed no threat, so the party took the opportunity to better investigate what had transpired before the party euthanized the final monster.

“The altar zombie had a hood on,” Mazo continued. “We didn’t think anything of it until the zombie said, ‘Ohhhhh Devontes.’” Mazo combined a tortured hiss with the animated drawl of a country girl for the voice of the zombie.

The Devon at the bonfire in Gomi blushed as laughter kicked up around him.

“The first time you hear a zombie say the name of your Apprentice, you question whether you heard what you thought you heard, because that’s weird right? But she kept going! ‘Ouch! Not that one.’ ‘Don’t be sorry. It’s normal.’ ‘No, I didn’t. You would have known.’ ‘Well, it’s a nice… shape.’”

Becky and Galinda cackled.

“Gret insisted we hear her out as she might reveal something useful, so we spent a good half hour listening to this girl repeat things she said to Devon like she was reading back her half of the transcript.”

“Did you end up learning anything useful?” Olza asked.

“Other than that Devon was really bad at foreplay? Not a thing. Finished up in the temple and reported the incident to the Guild. I wanted to be very detailed in our notes, but Devon wouldn’t let me. Gret stole a bunch of their pamphlets and continues to use them to haunt me from the grave.”

***

Open Quests (Ordered from Old to New):

Do your part to let the rift with Devon begin to heal.

Complete the next volume (Iron to Bronze) for "The Next Generation: A Teaching Methodology for Training Adventurers."

Complete construction of the Takarabune.

Fix the broken drawbridge in New Gomi.

Build a new kind of adventurers’ guild.

Plan the Gomi Games.

Convince an enchanter to move to Gomi.

Prepare the adventurers to fight infernal centaurs.

Fully consider the potential of perma-Charmed monsters.